A/N: Songbirds and Snakes spoilers coming at ya! And also :(

KATNISS POV

I watched him sometimes, that boy with the bread. My fellow victor in the 74th Annual Hunger Games. The boy that I found myself thinking more and more about with each passing day. I would watch him work in his yard, planting flowers and laying rocks for his pathways. On the hottest of days, he took off his shirt, and I won't go into detail about how that made me feel. At night, I lay in bed wondering what my life would be like if I allowed myself to love Peeta Mellark. I could kiss his sweet, soft, tender lips and be held in his strong, firm, muscular arms. He would whisper sweet nothings into my ear and bake me cheese buns in the morning. At first, I didn't want to allow myself to imagine what it would be like to make love to Peeta Mellark, but soon, I found that I just couldn't keep the thoughts away.

I smiled to myself late one night - tomorrow, I was going to kiss Peeta Mellark, for real. No cameras, no Capitol, no people forcing us together. I wanted to kiss him for real, and I didn't know why. I didn't want to love him. I didn't want to kiss him or touch him or even be near him, but the part inside of me that did was starting to take control. "Tell yourself," said my inner voice, the Katniss that loved Peeta. "Tell yourself that you love him. Tell him that you love him."

"I don't love him," I would say back to myself. "I don't love him, I'll never love him. That 'love' that you're detecting is not real love, it was a desire to survive."

But perhaps it was. Perhaps, deep inside, it was never about surviving. I'd always liked to live in the moment and not think about my future, but suddenly, I couldn't picture my future without Peeta Mellark. I wanted to go to bed wrapped up in his arms and wake up tangled in them once more, losing my hands in his hair and my gaze in his. No, I didn't want that. Why would I ever want that? Why would I love a boy that the Capitol was forcing me to be with? I didn't want to fall in love. I didn't want to marry or have children or any of that. Not with the Games constantly looming over my head. I wasn't going to kiss him tomorrow. Nope.

And then I saw him. He looked so strong and so handsome while he bent over his flowers. I wanted to throw my arms around that handsome, toned, sweaty body and kiss the face that belonged to it. The moment I saw him, I realised that like him when we were children, I was gone. So I made the first steps. From the window to the stairs, down the stairs and to the door. I opened the door and was about to call his name when I saw Madge Undersee, the mayor's daughter, joining him in his yard. They were smiling and laughing about something, but I didn't stay long enough to find out what. I quickly darted back into my house and closed the door, leaning my back against it to keep it closed, but I knew he wasn't going to follow me. I wanted to be angry and I wanted to hate him, but I knew I couldn't. And why couldn't I?

Because I was starting down the long path of falling in love with Peeta Mellark.

I tended to Peeta's wounds as soon as we were safe in the storage room beneath Tigris's shop. I was numb to everything, as if I had morphling coursing through my veins, but I knew that I was completely awake. I'd just watched one of my dearest friends die a gruesome death, and I lost my brother all over again. My heart sank at the thought that I'd never see Finnick's charming smile or hear his playful tone of voice ever again, nor would I hold my much beloved brother in an embrace again and I would never see that blue left eye and that brown right eye again. And neither would Cailean, Calum's twin. Not unless he looked in a mirror. And poor Annie and Carolina, never to hear the laughs of their beloveds again. Annie's children would never see their father again, would never hug him again, would never be held by him again. Finnick's little girl would never know her father, and Killick's memories of his father would fade as he grew up.

"You should have left me," I heard Peeta say, jolting me from thought, and I shook my head. Peeta was still alive. My Peeta, who promised me he would stay alive for me, who I promised I would stay alive for, whose child I carried within me.

"No," I said. "I'm glad I didn't."

"You promised me that you'd live," he told me, a firmness settling in his voice.

"You promised me that we'd both live," I spat back at him. The burns were worse than the bite on his leg, but I was able to treat them using the salve that Cailean and I developed in the lab back in Fourteen. "It doesn't matter now. We both survived, and we're both here now, now shut up and let me treat your leg." He didn't say another word, only sat there obediently giving the occasional hiss of a grimace of pain. When I'd finished bandaging him up, I sat up and looked at the rest of our party.

Cressida was comforting Pollux, who had just lost his brother. They appeared uninjured and unharmed, but I would have to check with them anyway. Donnel was fine, just cleaning off his knife from the blood of the mutts. Carolina was in tears, and Cailean sat beside her gently rubbing her back. Carolina had blood all over her hands and wrists, but I knew it wasn't hers. She sobbed, while Cailean comforted, neglecting his feelings for the loss of his twin brother in order to comfort the girl that his brother loved. Gale was nursing a scratch on his wrist, and he looked up at me and met my eyes, expecting me to come and treat him. I was the medic, after all. "Go take care of him," I heard Peeta said, and I glanced at him for a moment as he egged next on. I nodded, then picked up my equipment and moved over to Gale, taking his wrist in my hand and starting to clean the wound.

"Thank you for saving him," I said to him.

"I know how much you love him. I wouldn't be able to stand how you'd be if he wasn't here," he replied, seemingly selfishly. I didn't respond, and he let out a sigh. "Because it would hurt me as your friend."

"Since when are you my friend? You've been against me from the beginning. And every apology you've given me you've revoked," I replied.

"I still regret the things I said to you that day... I acted like I owned you, like I didn't care how you felt about him... about Peeta... I knew how much you loved him and knowing that hurt me, so I wanted to hurt you back in the only way I knew how, and that was denying the truth and pretending it didn't exist. And that was wrong, and I really, truly, am sorry," Gale told me as I stitched up his wrist. "I accept that we were never meant to be, and I accept that you love him, and that you belong to him."

"I don't belong to him. I don't belong to anyone."

"You picked who you couldn't survive without."

"You make me sound cold and unloving."

"Couldn't be farther from the truth. I guess I could have worded that better. You can survive without him, but you don't want to, and I accept that."

"Do you love Johanna?"

"I want to, but I don't know if I can. Not yet."

"Take it from the expert in love deniability," I said to him. "Don't lie to yourself. If you love her, don't tell yourself that you don't, and if you don't, don't force yourself to love her. You'll regret it." He nodded gently as I now bandaged his wrist.

"I'm sorry about your brother," he said after a moment of silence. "I know how that feels, losing a sibling..."

"It's happened to me before. I've lost Calum before. Now I've just lost him all over again," I replied. "Keep that clean or it'll get infected." I stood and walked over to a sink to wash my hands, not wanting to talk about my brother. I wiped a tear from my eye and stood against the sink, not ready to face the unit, or to face Peeta and have him ask me what was wrong again and again until I answered. When I turned, he was watching me, and I let out a sigh. Might as well get this over with. I returned to Peeta's side and sat down beside him, and he wrapped his arms around me and held me against his shoulder. He didn't ask me what was wrong - he already knew.

We spent the night in Tigris's basement, I falling asleep against Peeta's shoulder rather quickly and waking up with his head resting against mine, his chest slowly rising and falling, indicating that he was in a deep slumber. I didn't move, not wanting to wake him. He looked so peaceful among the chaos that surrounded us and I wanted to keep him that way for as long as I could. Suddenly, Donnel sat down beside his little brother on the other side, knowing that I was awake. "How's his leg?" he whispered to me.

"He'll be all right," I replied. He looked as if he wanted to say something else. "Please don't tell me you're sorry for anything... I've heard it enough." He nodded, not saying another word for a moment.

"He told me about the baby. Asked me to protect you, in case he couldn't," Donnel told me. Of course Peeta told his brother about the baby.

"Doesn't surprise me one bit," I replied, my arm still wrapped around Peeta's abdomen.

"He loves you and wants to make sure you're taken care of if something happens to him."

"I don't need to be taken care of by anyone but him." I wanted to say that I didn't need to be taken care of by anyone period, but I knew that there were times that I needed Peeta to take care of me.

"He was just looking out for you."

"I know." Another moment of silence passed between myself and my brother-in-law. "What do you know about Tigris? You knew her, knew she was against Snow and the Capitol. Why?"

"She's been wronged by Snow in so many ways... I think the biggest thing was how he killed the version of himself that Tigris once knew and loved."

"She was his lover, too?" Donnel chuckled quietly.

"No, she's his cousin. They used to be very close, when they were young, but... then he changed. And she changed. She was against the man he was becoming and he threatened to have her killed if she didn't support him."

"That sounds so terrible."

"What sounds so terrible?" Peeta's voice startled us both as Donnel and I looked down into his sleepy eyes.

"Peeta, my love, you should be sleeping," I told him.

"You two woke me up," he replied with amusement, looking first at me and then at his brother. "What are you talking about?"

"About Tigris, and how she's Snow's cousin and she wants him equally as dead as we do," Donnel told his brother.

"Now you know, so go back to sleep," I tried to tell my husband.

"How about you go to sleep and I'll consider falling back asleep," he said to me defiantly, and I shook my head.

"Stubborn man, you are," I replied.

"I learned from the best," he told me, pulling me closer to him and kissing the side of my head.

"Guess I should leave the happy couple be," said Donnel with amusement, and he stood and left us to sit there, and as we were about to lean into one another for a kiss, we were interrupted by Gale, who crawled over to us and sat down in front of us.

"We're close enough to Snow that I should tell you what my separate orders are," he said, and Peeta and I exchanged a glance before we looked back at Gale. "My orders are to assassinate Snow."

"Not without me, you're not," I said suddenly, and Peeta looked at me.

"And you're not without me," he told me, equally as firmly as I had responded to Gale.

"You're staying here where it's safe, Peeta. You're injured," I told him, now looking at him.

"I won't let you go," Peeta replied.

"Need I remind you who here is actually first in command and who is second in command?" I asked him. We both acted as commanders of equal rank, however, it was actually me who was in command, while Peeta was second in command. "You're staying behind. That's an order."

"An order I'll disobey," he said back to me.

"You're not coming," I replied firmly.

"This is actually a mission that I should be doing myself-" Gale began, interrupting mine and Peeta's argument, but I shushed him.

"Peeta, you're not coming and that's final," I told him, letting go of him and pushing myself away from him.

"You try stopping me," he replied back, and I just rolled my eyes.

"What time do we leave?" I asked Gale.

" I should actually probably leave sooner rather than later..." Gale started, but we were interrupted by another Capitol broadcast. This one told of the evacuation of the rest of the Capitol and that Snow was welcoming everyone into his mansion for safety and that he was offering food, clothing and medicine to the citizens of the Capitol. "Guess the other teams are closing in..."

"Now's the best time to go," I said. "With refugees heading to the mansion, now's the best time for it. We can get disguises and slip in unnoticed. How far are we from Snow's mansion?"

"Couple of blocks," said Cressida. "No one will ever see you coming."

"Guess we'd better ask Tigris if she can disguise us," said Peeta, standing up unaided and with little difficulty. The salve I'd put on his burns and the bites on his leg had healed them in his sleep.

"Peeta, no," I began as he started to climb the stairs.

"My leg is better, Katniss. Not taking 'no' for an answer," he said back, and he knocked on the panel above his head. Before I knew it, Gale and I were dressed in large hideous Capitol coats and Tigris was helping Peeta put one on.

"No," I said again. "That's very kind of you, Tigris, but he's not going."

"I told you that you're not stopping me," said Peeta angrily and through gritted teeth, and Gale came over again to break up the argument.

"He can try to break through on the other side of the crowd. Two teams, you and me, Peeta and Donnel," Gale replied, and Peeta seemed to accept that.

"It's out of your hands now, Katniss," Peeta told me, and I wanted to punch him, but knowing how that no matter what I said, he was going, I dropped all anger I held for him and just pulled him into my arms for a tight embrace.

"I might never see you again," I told him through tears, and I felt him smile into my neck as he kissed it.

"If you don't, you'll have something to remember me by," he whispered, putting a hand on my stomach. It was impossible to see that I was pregnant, so it could easily look as if we were faking it like we were during the Quarter Quell, but Peeta and I both knew that it was real.

"Peeta..." I whispered back, not wanting to hear him say things like that.

"If I see you again... it'll be a different world." He pulled back from the embrace and smiled at me, and he pressed his lips to mine one last time. When we finally broke our kiss, he smiled again. "You're so beautiful... I love you so much, Katniss."

"Don't say goodbye," I whispered to him through tears.

"Then I'll see you soon," he said back.

"I love you, Peeta," I said, pulling him back into my arms and holding him tightly. And then we were off, blending in with the crowd of Capitol refugees making their way towards Snow's mansion. I wanted to be with Peeta so badly, but we'd be more easily recognised together than we would be separately. Nearby was a little girl wearing a yellow coat, and when she looked up into my face, I thought for sure that she would give us away, but she didn't. Instead, she only smiled sweetly, having no idea what was going to happen to her. I could have sworn I heard Gale whisper something beside me.

I had no idea what was going to happen to her either because I went into a sort of state of shock right after it happened. I thought I saw her get hit, blood splattering that sweet pale yellow coat. I saw fighters with the rebel seal on the wings flying overhead and at first, I thought they were going to target the mansion, but they didn't. Instead, they started shooting into the crowd of Capitol refugees and I felt Gale push me down, knocking my earpiece out of my ear. "Who authorised this?" I demanded to know as I watched the rebel fighters shooting down regular Capitol citizens.

"I did," he replied. "Let's go." He stood and dragged me to stand and then started pushing through the crowd again. We got separated when a second round of fighters came through and I watched him get grabbed by a Peacekeeper. "Shoot me," he mouthed, but I couldn't dare. If I did, I'd give away my position as well as my identity, he knew that, and yet he kept begging me to shoot him until he disappeared into a van. I continued on, no earpiece to connect me to Peeta any longer, and decided to finish the mission that Gale had been assigned. Did I want to kill Snow? Not personally, but he'd taken everything from me, and I wasn't going to let him even have the chance to take Peeta from me.

Suddenly, a Capitol hovercraft flew overhead and stopped, causing the Capitol citizens who were left to freeze. When I looked at the crowd, there were children corralled in a separate section waiting to be let into the Capitol while the rest of the citizens stood by waiting for something to happen. Suddenly, the hatch at the bottom opened up and released maybe fifty parachutes, very similar to the ones used in the arena, onto the crowd. "Gifts!" some of the people shouted, and I watched as the citizens of the Capitol raised their hands in unison as the hovercraft flew away. How unusual, I thought, that the Capitol would be releasing parachutes over their citizens right now of all times. But then I found out why. About half of them exploded in the hands of the people that held them and the explosion deafened me as it threw me back. I landed in a puddle of someone's blood, and I met the dead eyes of the woman it belonged to. She was young, easily my age, and dressed in the stupid fashion of the Capitol, but no matter how stupid I thought she looked, she didn't deserve this. None of them did.

These people, the Capitol citizens, knew nothing else. They were raised to believe that Snow was doing right by the country of Panem and he rewarded the citizens of the Capitol for their support with ostentatious money, food, body modifications and so much more. These people didn't know fear, or starvation, only minor inconveniences which to them, were the end of the world, and that wasn't their fault. It was the only thing they knew. They didn't have to fear for the lives of their children, so they didn't. They didn't have to fear for the lives of their loved ones if they made a mistake, so they didn't. They didn't know what actually happened in the districts. They were fed lies, lies that said we were taken care of and fed and happy and bowed down to Panem, willingly sacrificing two of our children every year. They didn't know.

I sat up, putting out the fire at the base of my large ostentatious Capitol coat, and watched as the victims of the bombs moaned and cried not only from their wounds, but for the loss of their loved ones, or of their homes. The world that they knew had come crashing down before them, and their faces turned to expressions of disgust as they realised what their beloved president had done to them. Snow. How could he? To his own people? Perhaps he knew he was going to be killed. He wanted to take down the people of the Capitol with him - mercy killings? He knew that their lives would change and that perhaps they wouldn't be able to handle the culture shock that they would have to endure with the change of government, so he wanted to take them with him. He didn't even give them a choice.

I watched as rebel medics ran through the crowds to the sides of wounded Capitol citizens, and my attention was caught by a blonde braid. I felt my stomach drop as I realised what was happening. Prim. She was here in the Capitol, on the battlefield tending to the wounded as a field medic does. She was lost to the world as she opened her medic pack and started treating the burns of the poor bastard that lay beneath her, and a sick feeling suddenly took over me. "Prim!" I shouted, and her brilliant blue eyes looked up at me. Our eyes locked for only a moment, before the fires consumed her and everyone around her.

It was all in slow motion. The fires, eating up everything in their path, burned whoever was left behind, living or dead, Capitol or rebel. It was indiscriminate, just as death always was. Death didn't care if you were Capitol or District, male or female, black or white, rich or poor, old or young... Death didn't care if you deserved it or not. It took everything, and everyone. The fires came from the other half of the parachutes that had been released. When they exploded, some had thrown the unexploded ones away in fear, not knowing that they were going to meet the same fate anyway. One of those parachutes that had been thrown away lay next to me, about ten feet away, and I was on fire.

The girl on fire, they called me. I could almost laugh at the irony. The girl on fire I was, indeed. I am a girl, and I was on fire. I saw the light before it all faded to black.